Choosing: Tents

When choosing a tent, there are 3 main questions to consider:
• How many people are going to sleep in it?
• What weather conditions will you be using it in?
• Is weight and bulk an important issue?

Size verses weight
A major consideration for anyone who will be carrying their tent is the internal space the tent offers verses it’s weight. A 2-person tent will be designed to sleep 2 people, but will not necessarily provide much in the way of storage space for gear or ‘living room’ for changing clothes, cooking, sitting out bad weather, etc. Some tents offer larger porches, or a porch on each side/end (therefore giving double the storage space), with only a marginal increase in weight. Alternatively, a 3-person tent would give much more living room, and may not be too much more weight, especially if it is split between 2 people for carrying. Some 1-person tents are extremely light and compact, but do not even allow you to sit up (think about changing out of wet waterproofs and getting into your sleeping bag…). Ultimately you must decide whether the increased comfort and convenience of carrying a lightweight (but cramped) tent outweighs the comfort and convenience of a more spacious (but heavier) tent.

Pitching
The 2 main methods of pitching are inner first or inner and outer together. Inner first offers the benefit of extra strength and stability, plus a larger ventilation gap between inner and outer (which reduces condensation). Tents which pitch Inner and outer together are quicker to put up and keep the inner tent drier if pitching in the rain.

Categories of tent
The tents we sell can be roughly divided into 3 types, depending on their design, construction and intended use:

Type	Typical features	Suggested suitability
3-season camping	Lighter weight fabrics and poles. Less ridged and stable structure. Will cope with heavy rain and moderately strong winds. Inner is well vented to make the tent cooler in hot weather. Often the cheapest type of tent.	Camping and backpacking in mild or hot weather. Travel to hot climates. Car camping.
4-season backpacking	Stronger fabrics, poles and structure. Will cope equally well with hot and cold temperatures through use of adjustable vents on inner and outer. Will withstand heavy rain, strong winds and some snow.	Year round backpacking, trekking and camping.
Expedition	Strongest fabrics, poles and structure. Designed especially to cope with gale force winds and heavy snow. Will have smaller entrances to reduce the amount of snow blown in severe weather. Will have a lower profile (but therefore less headroom) to give a more wind-shedding shape. Inner will be less vented to increase warmth of tent.	Mountaineering, high altitude trekking, and camping in exposed locations in winter.

General features
All the tents we sell utilise:
• High quality aluminium poles, shockcorded together for convenience of assembly. They are much lighter and stronger than fibreglass.
• Waterproof, seam-sealed, sewn-in groundsheets, made of coated polyester or nylon.
• Waterproof and UV resistant flysheets, made of coated polyester or nylon.

Seam sealing
Some of the tents we sell (TNF expedition and Macpac) utilise specialist flysheet fabrics that cannot be factory seam sealed in the normal way - the fabrics would be damaged if this was done. In these instances, the tents are supplied with paint-on seam sealant for you to do the job yourself. This is easiest to do by pitching the tent with the flysheet inside out, allowing you easy access to the seams.

Condensation
All tents that are waterproof (as any good tent should be!) will allow condensation to form on the inside surface of the flysheet – most notable first thing in the morning. A well designed tent will have a good airspace between the inner and flysheet, reducing the amount of condensation (through increased ventilation), and reducing the chance of the inner touching the outer and getting wet.

Cooking in tents
All the fabrics used in the tents we sell burn very easily and rapidly, and as such our advice is to never use a stove in your tent. However, in some situations this can not be avoided. In this case, take extra care that the tent is adequately ventilated, and that the stove is well away from sidewalls, etc. Take extra special care with liquid fuel stoves that can flare-up during lighting and in use. Consider how you would escape if the tent did catch fire.

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